Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Ultra-Orthodox Jews are using WhatsApp to defy their rabbis’ Internet ban . The popular messaging app has made it difficult for Hasidic leaders to keep the secular world at bay...

Ultra-Orthodox Jews' Anti-Internet Rally

Like most people, Moshe spends a lot of his time messaging friends
on his smartphone. Unlike most people, he can’t openly talk about it.

As a Hasidic Jew living in Brooklyn, Moshe’s online activities are
extremely limited. His ultra-orthodox sect has long banned internet use,
on the grounds that exposure to the secular world would lead to moral
corruption, sexual promiscuity, and infidelity. The insular community
has allowed for some exceptions, acknowledging that smartphones and
computers are now essential for business, though its leadership still
requires members to install web filters on their devices, blocking all
social media services and all but a few whitelisted websites. Internet
use among children remains strictly forbidden.

Moshe, like many other Hasidim, regularly skirts these rules with WhatsApp — the popular messaging application that Facebook acquired
for $19 billion in 2014. On his second, unfiltered smartphone, he uses
the app to share news articles and local gossip across several group
chats, some of which include up to 100 members.

WhatsApp has become popular among the Haredi community — an umbrella
term for ultra-Orthodox Jewish sects that include the Hasidim. For Moshe
and other Hasidim, the app provides a window into the outside world,
and a forum for candid debate and discussion. In their view, it’s a
closed network that’s not explicitly connected to the open web. For
Hasidic leaders, it’s the latest threat to centuries of tradition and
insularity.

Earlier this year, a forum of leading Haredi rabbis in Israel issued an injunction against using WhatsApp, which they described
as "a great spiritual danger." A 2014 article in a Yiddish-language
newspaper pointed to WhatsApp as the “number one cause of destruction of
Jewish homes and businesses," citing
rabbis who oversee divorces. Hasidic leaders have yet to fully ban the
app, though they only allow it to be used with strong filters that block
images and video. Those found to be using non-filtered phones could be
ostracized from the community and have their children thrown out of
ultra-Orthodox schools.

That’s why Moshe, 40, requested that his real name not be published. "We are playing with my kids’ lives," he told me.

Hasidic leadership has in recent years mounted a concerted campaign
to control the web. In 2012, ultra-orthodox leaders held a massive anti-internet rally
at Citi Field baseball stadium in New York, where they called for
tighter restrictions on internet use. Ultra-orthodox rabbis have
effectively limited outside media in the past, with edicts against
television and radio, and tight controls over Yiddish-language
newspapers. But the internet has proven more insidious, and with the
rise of smartphones, it’s become even harder to control.

Ysoscher Katz, a former ultra-orthodox rabbi, says the community’s
insularity stems from the belief that strict adherence to tradition is
the best way to preserve Jewish identity. "The idea is that once you
adopt contemporary names, contemporary clothing, and contemporary
language, then eventually that’ll lead to assimilation and dissolution
of the Jewish community," says Katz, who grew up in the Hasidic sect but
eventually left to become a rabbi and teacher at a more progressive
orthodox community in New York.

"They’re very worried and very afraid. And very anxious."

He recalls Hasidic leaders "aggressively fighting back" when the
internet began gaining traction more than a decade ago, with strict bans
on household computers, and those efforts have only amplified as
technology has evolved. "I would lie to you if I said I don’t sympathize
with their concerns," Katz says. "They’re very worried and very afraid.
And very anxious."

So far, the community has policed smartphone use through a small
group of approved filtering companies. Whitelisted sites and services
are determined by local rabbinical boards, and the parameters can change
from one community to another. But the guiding principle is that if
it’s not business-related, it’s blocked. "The assumption is that any
website could potentially lead to something inappropriate, or something
dangerous or titillating," Katz says. "So the starting point is very low
and the bar is very high."

With WhatsApp, Haredi leaders face a new dilemma. At its core, the
app is a messaging service, and ostensibly permissible for business use;
but it also incorporates elements of social networks, which remain
strictly forbidden. And with more community members, like Moshe,
secretly carrying unfiltered phones and sharing links from the wider
web, it’s become nearly impossible to keep the outside world at bay.

Samuel Heilman, a professor of sociology at Queens College CUNY who
has spent his career studying contemporary orthodox Jewish communities,
describes Hasidic WhatsApp groups as vibrant forums where users share
"everything from jokes to news accounts." He says that the group’s
moderators are very "plugged in" to the news cycle. Last month, for
example, Heilman first learned of the deadly stampede at Mecca through one of the group chats he was invited to join.

"A real threat for their insularity."

"There’s nothing now of the outside world that doesn’t find its way
into these Haredi enclaves," he says.

"And so this represents a real
threat for their insularity."

Last week, Moshe added me to a few of the dozen WhatsApp groups he
created. One is devoted to business (he works in marketing and finance),
and another for a small group of his close friends. The largest, and
most active group, is primarily for general news and discussion. It
includes around 100 members, though Moshe estimates that he personally
knows around 30.

Much of the discussion last week focused on the latest developments
in Israel, and the escalating violence there, though group members
shared links and media about other stories, as well — everything from
the presidential primary race to local news. The conversation would
shift between Yiddish and English, and at times, it was difficult to
keep up. One minute, I would be scrolling through photos of Jimmy Kimmel
shooting a segment in their neighborhood, or videos of young Hasidic
men dancing at a recent event. Seconds later came videos of a bus that
had caught fire near LaGuardia Airport, or news that a New York police
officer had been gunned down.

"I show him the middle finger, that I still have an opinion. He cannot censor my opinion."

There was plenty of debate, and things sometimes got heated. But
Moshe says that’s exactly the kind of dialogue that’s too often stifled
by censored Yiddish media. He sees himself as a kind of editor for the
group, dropping in links to spark discussions that wouldn’t happen in
public. For him, it’s a quiet form of rebellion.

"What is a filter? A filter censors you," he told me last week. "He
wants to censor my mind. And I show him the middle finger, that I still
have an opinion. He cannot censor my opinion."

Yet despite his misgivings about the community and its approach to
the internet, Moshe admits that he would never leave. That would involve
abandoning his family, isolating his children, and leaving the only
life he’s ever known. Instead, he’s forced to lead a double life. In
public, he dutifully uses his flip phone and feigns ignorance of the
outside world; in private, he scours the web for news stories and memes
to share. It’s a delicate balance that he maintains for the sake of his
children.

When parents enroll their children in ultra-orthodox schools, known
as yeshivas, they’re often obliged to register their phone numbers and
sign a form saying that they won’t allow their children to access the
internet at home. "The goal of that letter is either to discourage
people from having internet or to make it very clear that if they do
have internet, this kid better not have access to it," says Naftuli
Moster, a former Hassid who left the community to start an advocacy group for yeshiva reform. "And that part is very strictly enforced."

"They need their kids to go to that school. It's not like there are options."

Proving that people have internet for the wrong reasons can be
difficult, Moster says, though authorities can be tipped off if children
talk about it at school, or through community gossip. And the threat of
having their kids pulled out of yeshiva is serious enough for parents
to keep quiet. "They need their kids to go to that school," Moster says.
"It’s not like there are options."

For now, it appears that the leadership is treading lightly with regards to WhatsApp. A representative from Geder,
a New York-based filtering company, says community leaders decided that
the app is necessary as a messaging tool for business purposes, but
ordered all images and videos sent within it be blocked. All of the
major Hasidic filtering companies use the same basic software, called Livigent,
though Geder’s incorporates "live filtering" technology that
automatically scans every web page and blocks any offending content. If
it detects an image with skin tones, for example, it will replace it
with a black box.

Moster believes rabbis could effectively crack down on WhatsApp if
they wanted to, though he says they would risk backlash if Hasidic
businesses begin suffering, adding that the app has already become
ingrained within the community. Perhaps in anticipation of a crackdown,
many within Moshe’s social circle have begun using Telegram — a similar
messaging app that offers encrypted texting and doesn’t link user
accounts to phone numbers. Moshe believes the app offers stronger
privacy protections than WhatsApp, underscoring fears that their online
conversations could be monitored. Last week, two filtering companies,
Geder and Meshimer, sent emails to clients notifying them that Telegram
would now be blocked.

"There’s no way that the ultra-orthodox community in 30 years will look the way it looks now."

In a phone interview, the Geder representative said a local
rabbinical board decided to block it after
determining that it wasn’t
necessary for business use, and denied that the move had anything to do
with the encrypted communications that Telegram allows. He added that
customer data is stored on secure servers and not shared with anyone
else, though Moshe and some others in his WhatsApp groups remain wary.

For Moshe and other Hasidim carrying unfiltered phones, stronger
censorship won’t make much of a difference. They’ll continue sharing
links and information through WhatsApp or other messaging platforms, and
they’ll continue pretending like it doesn’t happen. Less clear is how
the leadership will respond going forward.

"I think it could go both ways," Katz, the former Hasidic rabbi, says
of a potential crackdown. "It could either be a huge success, and they
will ultimately succeed to isolate those who don’t adhere to their
wishes, or it might be a failure and they might ultimately concede."

In the long run, though, he thinks change is inevitable. "There’s no
way in the world that the ultra-orthodox community in 30 years will look
in any shape or fashion the same way it looks now."

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